will give thee an eternal crown of glory, that none shall ever take from thee. There is not another way. Bear thy cross. Stand faithful for God." "

It was in Pennington's house that Thomas Ellwood lived, as tutor to Guli and the other children, to whom one day in 1655 had come his friend John Milton, bringing a manuscript for him to read. "He asked

me how I liked it, and what I thought of it, which I modestly but freely told him; and after some further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, Thou hast said much here of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say about Paradise found?" Whereupon the poet wrote his second epic.

Ellwood has left a happy description of Guli Springett. "She was in all respects,"

he says, 66 a very desirable woman, whe

ther regard was had to her outward person, which wanted nothing to render her completely comely; or as to the endowments of her mind, which were every way extraordinary." And he speaks of her "innocent, open, free conversation," and of the "abun

dant affability, courtesy, and sweetness of her natural temper." Her portrait fits with this description, showing a bright face in a small, dark hood, with a white kerchief over her shoulders. Both her ancestry and her breeding would dispose her to appreciate heroism, especially such as was shown in the cause of religion. She found the hero of her dreams in William Penn. Thus at Amersham, in the spring of 1672, the two stood up in some quiet company of Friends, and with prayer and joining of hands were united in marriage.

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My dear wife," he wrote to her ten years later, as he set out for America, "remember thou hast the love of my youth, and much the joy of my life; the most beloved, as well as the most worthy of all earthly comforts. God knows, and thou knowest it. I can say it was a match of Providence's making."

The Declaration of Indulgence, the king's suspension of the penalties legally incurred by dissent, came conveniently at this time to give them a honeymoon of peace and

tranquillity. They took up their residence at Rickmansworth, in Hertfordshire. In the autumn, William set out again upon his missionary journeys, preaching in twentyone towns in twenty-one days. "The Lord sealed up our labors and travels," he wrote in his journal, "according to the desire of my soul and spirit, with his heavenly refreshments and sweet living power and word of life, unto the reaching of all, and consolating our own hearts abundantly."

So he returned with the blessings of peace, "which," as he said, "is a reward beyond all earthly treasure."

V

THE BEGINNING OF PENN'S POLITICAL LIFE: THE HOLY EXPERIMENT

IN 1673, George Fox came back from his travels in America, and Penn and his wife had great joy in welcoming him at Bristol. No sooner, however, had Fox arrived than the Declaration of Indulgence was withdrawn. It had met with much opposition: partly ecclesiastical, from those who saw in it a scheme to reestablish relations between Rome and England; and partly political, from those who found but an ill precedent in a royal decree which set aside parliamentary legislation. The religious liberty which it gave was good, but the way in which that liberty was given was bad. What was needed was not "indulgence," but common justice. So the king recalled the Declaration, and Parliament

being not yet ready to enact its provisions into law, the prisons were again filled with peaceable citizens whose offense was their religion. One of the first to suffer was Fox, and in his behalf Penn went to court. He appealed to the Duke of York.

The incident is significant as the beginning of another phase of William's life. Thus far, he had been a Quaker preacher. Though he was unordained, being in a sect which made nothing of ordination, he was for all practical purposes a minister of the gospel. He was the Rev. William Penn. But now, when he opened the door of the duke's palace, he entered into a new way of living, in which he continued during most of the remainder of his life. He began to be a courtier; he went into politics. He was still a Quaker, preaching sermons and writing books of theological controversy; he gave up no religious conviction, and abated nothing of the earnestness of his personal piety; but he had found, as he believed, another and more effective way to serve God. He now began to enter into that valu